Terms
The Code Company founder Ben May talks at an industrial event (c) thecode.co
The Code Company, a professional agency that is focused on digital publishing and is among's top partner. They are WordPress experts and work with large-scale design as well as migrations and integrations. They are developing hundreds of technology stacks to support hundreds of publishers.
The company recently relaunched Substack giant The Dispatch, a publication for reporting and commentary about politics, policy, and culture that is worth $1.9 million, and boasting hundreds of thousands of subscribers. I spoke to Stacey Astley-Clark, in the communications and partnerships team, about the company and the services it offers:
"Our director Ben May has been using technology to tackle problems since grade 10," says Stacey. "He developed his first site for a local company in the year 12 and earned 400 dollars." Ben noticed that there was an opportunity and a potential profession from all this, and thus launched his very agency in the year of 22.
The Code Company didn't deliberately get into publishing, but it did gain a few publishing clients in the beginning. Stacey describes: "We've carved out a specialization in the development of technology for digital publishers as well as switching from other platforms to WordPress as well as building membership functions, and ad tech. We were initially platform agnostic however, we realized that nearly all of them sucked! Now we work exclusively with WordPress There were also numerous'rescue operations that were a result of alternative platforms."
"The essential engineering aspects that is used to create publishing websites, is what is our job," Stacey continues. The team assists publishers with complex problems using WordPress and discover ways to use technology to "increase the revenue of their business, achieve greater efficiencies within the company and reduce the risk of business involving technology".
Stacey and I agree that technology is becoming less techie' and this is really important for publishing. "Sometimes you have editors, creators of content and marketing professionals who are using technology, and need to have the ability to utilize it without ringing an engineer every five minutes.These are 'words people' and not tech people."
The Code Company helps these people develop or transition to tech stacks that can make them self-sufficient "They require something be able to perform the same tasks as previously, but in a simpler manner. We frequently work with publishing companies who have sites that are creaking with tech debt. A plugin may not give the features they need, and we've found it to be better to design a custom integration, so users get what they want with none of the items they do not."
Customers
The Code Company works with content organizations of all types including independent publishing to huge entertainment corporations. They recently completed the high-profile launch of Wondermind which is a content hub for mental health that is that is backed by the likes of celebrity Selena Gomez and Newsette CEO Daniella Pierson. The launch was praised by Bhavik Trivedi who is the Chief Operations Officer at Wondermind said: "I've never had a smooth launch. Until now. The site went live in the middle of the day, and it was gradually scaled as the increase in traffic and our integrations performed flawlessly."
FuqQ9UfLAmNAKjVpzFCV The new Wondermind media hub (c) thecode.co
They also work together with Nine, the biggest entertainment group in Australia. "We developed their corporate website, plus publications drive.com.au, the country's leading auto website and Future Women, a membership site for professional women." The Code Company also launched eBay's local ads site. "That was a major issue because they'd never had regional leads prior to this and started getting Australian leads because of that site," Stacey confirms. "We have recently launched a brand new website called Science Alert, which is one of the top science publications in the US. It's operated from Australia, but most of the readers are from the US. We worked on that project for a year and a one-half year!" she remembers.
However, it appears that the company's sweet spot is working with slightly smaller established publishers that are looking to scale. "We inquire, 'How can you prove that you can publish? How can we put your company and the tech stack to be in the best shape for you to scale your business?'" Stacey says. That's probably where the bulk of The Code Co's clients are located; for instance, independent media groups such as the news site Crikey and Her Campus, a female college students media group in The US (that The Code Company has moved to Drupal in order to switch to WordPress).
The HerCampus.com content hub across several platforms (c) thecode.co
"We help talented and creative creators who find themselves frustrated, or frustrated by their platform of choice or CMS (content management systems)," Stacey adds. "They're seeking us out for alternative options because they're seeing that their current platform is restrictive on the things they are able to do. It's not very flexible and also they earn a huge chunk of the revenue." In addition, it's getting more and increasingly important for creators at any level to collect data from first parties. "They're just not able to get that from platforms like Substack. We are building custom creator stacks that let users to control their own audience," she explains.
Solutions and services
The customers of The Code Company may have built their website themselves they may have enlisted somebody to build it. In either case, they're working with a lot of plugins. "As they've advanced, things are starting to break and they're not able to repair things themselves. It's creating a load of problems, and complaints from the readersand the fact that they're unable to accomplish what they would like to do. Sometimes they can't do things that are as easy as adding something on the menu." she confirms.
Mike McPhate at the California Sun confirms: "The biggest problem with my previous membership website was that it was riddled with glitches and unclear prompts about how to navigate it. I'd get emails almost every day from frustrated readers. Since I developed the website with The Code Company and , I'm no longer receiving these emails from users which is just amazing!"
The California Sun (c)thecode.co
As we all know, the performance of a website is crucial for publishers "If there is a drop in performance the publisher could lose hundreds of thousands of dollars" Stacey continues. "And they keep hacking out the same plugin, and then re-installing another. They're losing performance until their business just isn't successful any more. Then they'll come with us, with this big technological stack creaking in the background, conscious of the possibility of their site going out of commission due to poor performance."
More publishers are wanting to diversify their income sources, so they are increasingly exploring memberships and subscriptions. "We have to come up with a solution that is effective and safe. Our main job is researching solutions that will be life-changing for publishers," she says. Code Company Code Company works specifically with the concept of membership, which is to prevent what Stacey calls "leaky paywalls". The Code Company's founder explains that: "We've worked with other membership solutions before and we've found it very straightforward to circumvent the paywall. If your model of business is based on publishing, and is reliant on content that is paid for This creates a major issue."
New projects and events on the horizon
"The creator economy has boomed," Stacey notes. "Creators have realized that SaaS platforms aren't without their limits, and they're looking to explore other options. Diversification isn't going away for publishers, but neither is the need to constantly look at new ways to engage and connect with their audience with more personalized and targeted content. Subscriptions don't only generate revenue, they create the possibility of getting closer to audiences as well which can increase their engagement."
"There are still print publications out there that aren't yet on digital and we are continuing to receive inquiries from publications that realize that if they want to survive, they'll have to pivot into digital - and that subscription offering would form part of that."
As for recent events "Ben is well-known in the world of conferences," adds Stacey. Recently, Ben gave a talk at the Mumbrella conference for publishers in Australia in Sydney, as well as WordCamp US in San Diego. The presentations covered the creation economy, focusing on the minimalist publisher' and ways publishers can achieve more from little. It is also possible to learn from authors for larger publishing firms and, in many cases, using membership services.
Founder Ben May is a familiar name on the conference circuit (c) thecode.co
It appears that the founder of the company is an expert in the field. "Ben's been doing this all his life; there's no issue he's not able to answer," says Stacey. "The information I gather through conversations with clients is that if they have problems, they could have to pay another agency two weeks to investigate. The team at Code Company's technology can literally solve it in 20 minutes over the phone since he's experienced all of them. This is a huge advantage for any business to be able to do that type problem-solving capabilities."
To conclude, Stacey says: "Publishing or running a website doesn't require as much effort as people make it. Our whole ethos is anti-complexity." She and I agree that it's easy to become distracted by the latest gadget or theme or plug-ins "these blinking lights won't be able make a difference at all," she smiles.
The Code Company revels in "smart simplicities" it appears. Stacey states: "We offer the chance to locate a technology partner who can help you attain the success you want, in the simplest possible method that is effective, not just dropping the latest buzzword."
More details
For more information about The Code Company, to look through case studies of prior integrations and migrations as well as to learn more about working with them, check out their site thecode.co.